Swimgating 2011: Day 2

An exuberant Australian fan tailgates in Melbourne

Cheer up America! I know, we didn't win either of the relays on the first night. If you are a aggressively patriotic, I recommend not going to Aussie swim blog "Behind The Blocks" to read about night one. You've been warned. Let's move on and start talking about all the fun stuff that can happen during the second day of preliminaries in Shanghai.


Women's 100 backstroke is up first. How is Natalie Coughlin looking? More importantly, isn't there any way we can swap out her or Pelton for Franklin at this point? More importantly, a lot of people were predicting a nice home pool boost for the Chinese at this meet. So far we are not seeing it, and Chinese has two very highly seeded swimmers in this event, Jing Zhao and Gao Chang.

Are you ready to push the panic button on the men's 200 free? James Magnussen beat Phelps, Lochte didn't make the relay. EVERYBODY MOVE TO THE EXITS! The US ship is sinking! We will probably find out absolutely nothing this morning because they will both make the semi. Let's move on

The women's 100 breaststroke will feature the first of a series of cursory heats to determine the silver medalist behind Rebecca Soni. Sorry, rest of the world.

The 100 back will be our first look at the post Aaron Peirsol era. Across the country swim fans are shedding a tear. As I've mentioned, Camille Lacourt is our new, more handsome overlord.

Do you really need me to talk about a distance race prelim? Fine. The big hitters outside the US looked strong. 4:04 in the 400 is smoking for Lotte Friis, last year's fastest swimmer. Kom nu Danmark!